What an eye-opening experience my previous post was! I truly was not attempting to troll or even go off-topic with my post. What I stated above is simply what I wished to express in this topic.
But looking back at my post now, I see how it would appear to be quite trollish in relation to all other/. posts.
Anyways, I found my post above getting modded way down to be an interesting example of group-think here on/.
I have already migrated to Linux, and hence don't care about Microsoft patches anymore.
And you know what, Linux isn't that great initially. The install can be a little tough depending on the distro, not all my stuff is instantly recognized, yadda yadda yadda, but now that I've been fudging around with it for a while, WOW! My server just sits there and WORKS without crashing after X days. My main "power" machine just keeps on churning away, and installing new programs NEVER requires a reboot (unless it's the kernel of course).
Not to mention the fact that security updates are ready in days or hours, not weeks or months. Sure, it's a challenge to get Linux up and running to the place where it really rocks, but it's worth it. To those of you who aren't all consumed with the latest Windows game(s), give Linux a try. It does email, web surfing, office apps, audio apps, and a lot of other stuff right off most FTP servers, so it's not a piece of crap anymore.
I will also bet you that your paranoia level will go down quite a bit when you start using the inherently, by-design, more secure Linux. (Or any *BSD if that's how you swing)
LOL. Well, I may consider myself a "fundamentalist" Christian simply because I do believe Christ will come again, is the Son of God, etc. etc; however the point you make is spot on for unfortunately too many of the "Christians" in America. I put the word in quotes because quite often the soccer moms who claim to be good little church-goers really don't practice what they preach anyways, and I probably wouldn't agree with them on the fundamentals of being a Christian anyways.
So anyways, what I'm saying is that if you people have studied the Bible at all, you may have noticed that it's not really the "technology" that has anything to do with Christ's return. Ultimately, it's the anti-Christ's requiremments that every single person in the world is forced to take the mark of the Beast on the hand and on the forehead. Whether that's a tatoo, RFID tag, or WHATEVER, it doesn't matter. The Bible states no one except God the Father knows when Jesus Christ will return, and hence it's really pointless of the "fundies" you referred to, to worry much about this RFID tag stuff. I claim to be a Christian, and I'd use the RFID chip in a smart media card as my "new cash." What a great technology! God gave us brains, let's use 'em! Just as long as some dictator and/or leader isn't requiring me to put one on my hand and forehead to proclaim his greatness (basically).
I don't have all the answers of course, I'm only human. But just know that not all true "fundamentalist" Christians deplore the idea behind this RFID tech, just maybe the uses possible. Kinda like any tech. Guns are realtively "new" technologies, and yet they can be used for both good and evil. All depends on the motives behind the use of the tech, not just the tech itself.
It sounds like the real problem here is a problem of pleasing the customer. In the case of video games, movies, music, and other entertainment there always seems to be at least two (although sometimes 3) completely different customers:
1) The masses - These are the people like you and me who just want to be entertained. The entertainment doesn't even necessarily have to be revolutionary or star-studded to do an excellent job. It just has to entertain.
2) The critics - Game reviewers, movie reviewers, magazine editors, etc. Their job is to critique the product. They're not out strictly to be "entertained." They experience far more than "the masses" in entertainment because it's THEIR JOB to be entertained. Therefore they look for the massively innovative, creative, astounding, jaw-dropping, heart-wrenching thing THEY have seen to date. Which means that most of the time they're right, but they do get it wrong from time to time.
3) Other entertainers - They have lost complete touch with reality. They probably would rate a 3D first person shooter where you play an older retarded white man bumbling, drooling, and stumbling your way through an unimpressive, dreary level full of dopey stereotypes in a little redneck town (without actually shooting anyone) as "INSPIRING!", "AWESOME!", and "Truly warming to the soul."
Just know which type of customer you are, and then listen to what similar customers are saying.
For my money, I think the/. masses have convinced me to ask for MK:DD for Christmas.;)
I went on one of those driving "Jeep tours" out near Vail, CO this past summer. While the guide _was_ a prick, he did know how to yodel quite well, and supposedly lived in Austria (or maybe it was Switzerland) during WWII as a young boy (He was old enough and had the accent to prove it). He told us that while the Germans occupied his countryside, him and his friends who didn't approve of the Nazi's communicated from one mountain to another by yodeling. They in turn were able to avoid German patrols and such by communicating via yodelling... something the Germans didn't take the time to try and decipher I guess.
I've tried it all my friend. I'm using rpmdrake, but I've even got the RPM's downloaded onto my server (using the server to download them via wget) and trying to install via rpm or rpmdrake always gives the "md5 mismatch" errors for files over 3mb. Searching Google multiple times with multiple search phrases still hasn't yielded any good results as to what my problem might be. Any help at this point is appreciated.
Oh, BTW, I've replaced the motherboard already, so I know it's not that. It's either the memory or the CPU, but I'm not gonna plop down $60+ just to find out which is the problem. Not yet anyways...
I have to whole-heartedly agree. I'm using Mandrake 9.1 at home now, and am a happily converted Linux user. No more Win2Crap for me.
However, I am quite unable to get my computer to download any RPM's over approx. 3MB's in size without getting warnings of "md5 mismatch". I'm downloading from respectable sources, and have downloaded them at all different times of the day. Something must be wrong with my memory, swap space, or more likely, my processor. Unfortunately I have not found a good way to test my hardware, as all of the manufacturer's tests seem to pass just fine, and yet I still have problems. Maybe I cracked my AMD chip installing my heatsink... i dunno.
I've used Windows for over 10 years throughout it's various incarnations, but recently wiped it clean from all my computers at home (except my wife's laptop which I'm not allowed to touch) because free software IS better.
If a program, library, or other software code fails in general on Linux or *BSD: fix the broken software and get back to computing again. If Microsoft Windows gets screwed up (or you haven't reinstalled it in over a year), better back up all your data from all kinds of different folders on the HDD and settle in for an all-nighter reinstall of the core OS and the many many many security updates to get it back up and *barely useable* again!
I imagine this system would simply involve designing less wasteful logic gates than currently exist, in which AND, OR, and XOR gates send excess voltage inputs back through the circuit, allowing the power supply to use the energy again rather than throw it off as heat.
Remember, in the most simple OR gate, if you have two input voltages of +5V each, the output will only be +5V, leaving that additional +5V to be thrown off as heat. Sounds like this story is talking about some kind of logic gate that "recirculates" those 'extra' +5V signals back to the power supply system.
But don't take my word for it... I've only had some of the more basic circuit analysis and design courses to date.;)
Being a pilot is like being a professional athlete (for life). I was once pilot-qualified according to the U.S. Air Force's standards. Now however, I wouldn't be qualified at all. Sure I would probably be allowed to work as a glorified bus driver for Delta, if I was trained as a pilot, but two ACL knee reconstructions and now 35/20 eyesight wouldn't get me into any Air Force flight program. Also, it takes approximately 10 years or more (or so I've heard) to work your way up to being Captain of a multi-engine jet aircraft for any of the moderately sized airlines (even UPS and FedEx). Most graduates of commercial airline college programs have to spend years as under-paid flight instructors before they get to see the big money of being an airline's pilot.
Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.
Yes, my car is so inefficient because it can get me from point A, to point B (1000 miles away) in under 16 hours (provided I obey the speed limits). Any human would burn plenty of calories, poop a LOT, pee EVEN MORE, and eat a bunch of food to cover that distance on foot over the course of a FEW MONTHS! Let's face it, energy can be neither created nor destroyed. All this crap about "killing the environment" is really pretty lame, despite the concern that we're 'not doing good enough.' Sure, let's all go back to "prehistoric days" when we all lived to the ripe old age of 30 and had no means of communicating with those outside of our own tribe. Besides, think of all the COMPLETELY inefficient uses of raw materials back then!
So ultimately, the problem is that proprietary source code is best when built and sold as a finished product, and any updates or modifications are made by the original company. This concept only reinforces the idea of the Open Source benefits of code reuse. Which also happen to be the core benefits of software development in general.
That's because the mapping software can only distinguish down to the street level the approximate location of your house, I think. I do know that our software at work relies on 'Code 1' information when we mail out the stuff that we mail out, and without the full 11-digit zip code (that's right, 11 digits - the extra two digits at the very end indicate the exact location of the house, office, etc.) we have a harder time getting the stuff we mail to the correct place 100% of the time. And since we don't mail any kind of junk mail but rather sensitive info, it is VERY important that our mail goes to exactly the right place. I would think that might be quite a database hit to get it exact 100% of the time. More often than not, being on the right street is enough for a free service, if you think about it.
The point is, if God is an infinite being, why must he obey and/or bow to our attempts to prove or disprove His existence?
I mean every deity worth their salt could atleast make every experimental result ambiguous, randomly give the experimenters a bad head cold that only goes away when they stop the experiment, lose the paperwork etc. etc.
Either you intended that comment as a sarcastic slam on 'deities' everywhere, or you're just being retarded. Read 1 Kings 18 in the Bible for a great example of how this whole "testing" of God has been tried before and failed (at least that's what the story says). Remember while you read it that the God of the Bible is always described as an infinite god, and therefore trumps all other gods in the Bible. Having said that, the story of 1 Kings 18, whether you believe in God or not, is a great example of why applying our mortal knowledge to something that is greater than ourselves is an effort in futility.
Anyways, believe what you will, I just don't see the point in trying to apply the scientific method to "miracles" because by their definition they are considered beyond comprehension and scientific knowledge. Let's spend our money on actually improving upon known science, and less time wasted on this psuedo-science junk.
I don't get it. Why try and apply the scientific method to faith? That's just silly. God isn't Santa Claus; HE IS GOD! Duh! I'm sure God is a bit wiser than us (if you have faith that he is omniscient, omnipresent, etc. - basically infinitely perfect in all things). Why a scientist would try to apply a 4 dimensional measuring system to an infinite being (God) is beyond my comprehension.
C'mon, logically, either you believe in God or you don't. You can't measure that. You can infer by a person's actions with a high amount of accuracy that they do or don't believe in God, and that miracles are or are not possible, but you can't ultimately prove it one way or another. Let me guess, this was a US GOVERNMENT funded study, wasn't it?
The web is chock full of wild acusations and conspiracy theory pubs... so much so that reading anything takes 3-4 hits to try to verify the information.
The information it seems they're talking about is free for public use anyway, and just having a single repository with no slant would be good enough.
Ok, I can see the validity of that argument. However, let's look at how the "real" journalists gather their information:
1) Pick up on some issue, story, etc. 2) Interview subject that originated the story (if possible, otherwise research the source's validity) 3) Research two or three (at most, usually, it seems) other independent sources or correlating issues that relate back to the main topic. 4) Write up the story. 5) Profit
Notice that in step 4 there's very little mathematical, statistical, or actual fact-based references that can be verified by the person reading the story. That's why that New York dude who got canned a few months ago got away with fabricating stories for so long - no one validates the journalist's work!
Now imagine a decentralized, automated system that maintains references, cross-references, and verifiable information about the government's activities. I think that's what this MIT thing is aiming to be, and I think it's a great idea. Sort of a forced "open-sourcing" of the government and the people that run it. Of course, then you're invading on the personal dealings of those who serve us, and is that ethical or not? Kind of a reverse Big Brother, which might be every bit as scary, but at least it's keeping Big Brother in check, right?
I completely agree with the above poster's advice. Add in: OpenOffice 1.1 and Winamp 2.x for audio/video usage in Windows, or XMMS 1.8 for audio/video usage in Linux.
Granted, I don't have GB sized files, but I do maintain some of my own files on my work computer that I DO NOT want some random admin to have access to, especially if I were to be "let go" one day without warning or time to backup/wipe said files.
I use PGP - the 'freeware' version - because I'm only securing personal files, not work files. For work files I'm sure you'd need an enterprise license or some such thing, but I've found it to be really easy to use. I also haven't tested out how actually secure it is, but it's Good Enough for my purposes. Plus, if you needed to, you can assign different 'trusted' sources when you encrypt your files, allowing other engineers to access those special files without involving the IT dept's help.
Eventually, buildings could also be augmented with camera arrays inconspicuously embedded into wallpaper fabric to scan for intruders. In CMU's prototype, every sensing node uses small cameras and Atmel 8051 processors, running at 70 MHz and consuming up to 500 mW each, to analyze images for possible security breaches and then stream the video to a central display. Redundant devices keep the system running in case of local battery depletion or other types of failures.
But then quickly a quote from everyone's favorite movie sprung to mind:
"There's way too much information to decode the Matrix. All I see anymore is blonde... brunette... redhead.... I'll give ya a little piece of advice: If you see an agent, you do what we do. Run."
And once again I realized that no matter how bad it gets, ultimately it's all the same as before, and no one can actually control or design any kind of dystopian future as described in the book 1984. All ya gotta do is reconcile whether you want to embrace the new technologies and make the best of what we've got, or if you want to relegate yourself to living "the old way" like an Amish person.
My father-in-law has said that the advances in AI in the medical field are the new up-and-coming thing. Being able to type in five different symptoms that a patient has and then getting a return of possible diseases or ailments the person might have often yields VERY important data to the doctor to help him/her make the right decisions on how best to treat the patient. Sometimes the results the AI returns can be somewhat unexpected and the doctor would have no idea the patient might be suffering from the early stages of say... a cancerous tumor.
I find it funny that often-times I will hear something on the local news broadcast that has been covered in one online format or another WEEKS ago.
And if anyone is interested in a page that compiles a bunch of news sources into one big, ad-free site, check out this page that I found a while ago.
While we're having out the HP vs. TI flame war, let me add my kindling...
I have been a user of the TI-series of graphing calculators since they first came out with the TI-85/TI-82 line when I was in high school. My Physics teacher even did work for TI over the summers testing out their "new-fangled" (back then) IR sensors, radar sensors, and the 'CBL' which was basically a hand-held data collection microcontroller that could feed data directly into the TI calc's. Since then, (and since doing regular physics expirements with those instruments BECAUSE he had TI's backing for testing the instruments) I have always preferred TI. But that's not to say I wouldn't change given a better tool.
I currently have a TI-89, and use it for exactly what you described: checking my "equation set-up" before actually calculating. Seriously, who wants to enter thirteen different phasors in some big long equation and hit simply to find out that they flipped a '+' to '-' accidentally? I'm in school for engineering right now, and working full-time as a business analyst doing statistical analysis all day. Do you think I have time to do all the many calculations I do by hand all the time? NO! I also don't care much to worry about how the answer is found, just that it's right, and with the new TI's and their ability to display the entire equation after you've entered it in what I call "human readable format", I can be assured that I entered the equation correctly.
So for those of you '31337' pencil pushers out there, just realize that some of us are trying to get some REAL WORK done during the day and don't have the time to do it the old-fashioned way. I learned the basics, why waste time using the "old way" to do the math when I've got a better tool for it now?
Also, claiming the HP-48 or whatever is superior because it was the "best" back in it's heyday, is like claiming that "640k is enough RAM for ANYBODY!" Get with the times and use the best tool out there. Quit arguing about the brand name.
"As sprawling as these books are, there is no discussion of methodology, seemingly a critical lacuna in the founding of a new science."
In any scientific endeavor, methodology is CRITICAL. It's awfully hard to believe the measures and subsequent analysis if there is no basis for what is trying to be proved or disproved. Not only that, if the guy indeed is as focused on the stock market trends as this reviewer seems to think, then perhaps the guy who wrote the book is a bit more interested in proving something he's found to be interesting, rather than investigating the actual truthfulness or fallacy of the claims he makes.
I don't think I'll be reading a 2 volume set of books on "socionomics" if all it contains is posturing over the author's belief system without solid, objective reasoning for his beliefs.
Now there's a great idea! Seriously. When I first started out at college, I budgeted around $30/mth for myself in phone bills. That's right, $30/mth because I am from Ohio, and was attending school in Florida. The long distance charges calling a few friends cross-country and my family cross-country can add up QUICK! Especially for a freshman that's in a whole new environment. (Trust me, living amongst so many retiree's is like living amongst a bunch of retarded space-aliens, not that all old people act like retards, but a lot do tend to be rather crusty)
Seriously, for a freshman to not have to pay the phone bill each month, it's DEFINITELY worth it to stay on campus! That's about 6 extra Papa-John's pizza's per month!
Why is it that stupid people read horoscopes anyways? What is the formula at work here that makes people think that 'thier sign' is a unique horoscope that's RIGHT for them? If you read all the other horoscopes in the paper, or this website, they ALL apply to you too! I wonder what facet of our intelligence it is that tells us the horoscope is "right." If I pretended my birthday was 6 months later than it is, reading the horoscope for that day makes just as much gobblety-gook sense as my "real" horoscope. Anyone have some links to actual scientific studies on this subject of cognitive dissonance?
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And now for something completely offtopic...
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What an eye-opening experience my previous post was! I truly was not attempting to troll or even go off-topic with my post. What I stated above is simply what I wished to express in this topic.
But looking back at my post now, I see how it would appear to be quite trollish in relation to all other
Anyways, I found my post above getting modded way down to be an interesting example of group-think here on
I have already migrated to Linux, and hence don't care about Microsoft patches anymore.
And you know what, Linux isn't that great initially. The install can be a little tough depending on the distro, not all my stuff is instantly recognized, yadda yadda yadda, but now that I've been fudging around with it for a while, WOW! My server just sits there and WORKS without crashing after X days. My main "power" machine just keeps on churning away, and installing new programs NEVER requires a reboot (unless it's the kernel of course).
Not to mention the fact that security updates are ready in days or hours, not weeks or months. Sure, it's a challenge to get Linux up and running to the place where it really rocks, but it's worth it. To those of you who aren't all consumed with the latest Windows game(s), give Linux a try. It does email, web surfing, office apps, audio apps, and a lot of other stuff right off most FTP servers, so it's not a piece of crap anymore.
I will also bet you that your paranoia level will go down quite a bit when you start using the inherently, by-design, more secure Linux. (Or any *BSD if that's how you swing)
LOL. Well, I may consider myself a "fundamentalist" Christian simply because I do believe Christ will come again, is the Son of God, etc. etc; however the point you make is spot on for unfortunately too many of the "Christians" in America. I put the word in quotes because quite often the soccer moms who claim to be good little church-goers really don't practice what they preach anyways, and I probably wouldn't agree with them on the fundamentals of being a Christian anyways.
So anyways, what I'm saying is that if you people have studied the Bible at all, you may have noticed that it's not really the "technology" that has anything to do with Christ's return. Ultimately, it's the anti-Christ's requiremments that every single person in the world is forced to take the mark of the Beast on the hand and on the forehead. Whether that's a tatoo, RFID tag, or WHATEVER, it doesn't matter. The Bible states no one except God the Father knows when Jesus Christ will return, and hence it's really pointless of the "fundies" you referred to, to worry much about this RFID tag stuff. I claim to be a Christian, and I'd use the RFID chip in a smart media card as my "new cash." What a great technology! God gave us brains, let's use 'em! Just as long as some dictator and/or leader isn't requiring me to put one on my hand and forehead to proclaim his greatness (basically).
I don't have all the answers of course, I'm only human. But just know that not all true "fundamentalist" Christians deplore the idea behind this RFID tech, just maybe the uses possible. Kinda like any tech. Guns are realtively "new" technologies, and yet they can be used for both good and evil. All depends on the motives behind the use of the tech, not just the tech itself.
You must still be engaged, huh?
It sounds like the real problem here is a problem of pleasing the customer. In the case of video games, movies, music, and other entertainment there always seems to be at least two (although sometimes 3) completely different customers:
1) The masses - These are the people like you and me who just want to be entertained. The entertainment doesn't even necessarily have to be revolutionary or star-studded to do an excellent job. It just has to entertain.
2) The critics - Game reviewers, movie reviewers, magazine editors, etc. Their job is to critique the product. They're not out strictly to be "entertained." They experience far more than "the masses" in entertainment because it's THEIR JOB to be entertained. Therefore they look for the massively innovative, creative, astounding, jaw-dropping, heart-wrenching thing THEY have seen to date. Which means that most of the time they're right, but they do get it wrong from time to time.
3) Other entertainers - They have lost complete touch with reality. They probably would rate a 3D first person shooter where you play an older retarded white man bumbling, drooling, and stumbling your way through an unimpressive, dreary level full of dopey stereotypes in a little redneck town (without actually shooting anyone) as "INSPIRING!", "AWESOME!", and "Truly warming to the soul."
Just know which type of customer you are, and then listen to what similar customers are saying.
For my money, I think the
I went on one of those driving "Jeep tours" out near Vail, CO this past summer. While the guide _was_ a prick, he did know how to yodel quite well, and supposedly lived in Austria (or maybe it was Switzerland) during WWII as a young boy (He was old enough and had the accent to prove it). He told us that while the Germans occupied his countryside, him and his friends who didn't approve of the Nazi's communicated from one mountain to another by yodeling. They in turn were able to avoid German patrols and such by communicating via yodelling... something the Germans didn't take the time to try and decipher I guess.
I've tried it all my friend. I'm using rpmdrake, but I've even got the RPM's downloaded onto my server (using the server to download them via wget) and trying to install via rpm or rpmdrake always gives the "md5 mismatch" errors for files over 3mb. Searching Google multiple times with multiple search phrases still hasn't yielded any good results as to what my problem might be. Any help at this point is appreciated.
Oh, BTW, I've replaced the motherboard already, so I know it's not that. It's either the memory or the CPU, but I'm not gonna plop down $60+ just to find out which is the problem. Not yet anyways...
I have to whole-heartedly agree. I'm using Mandrake 9.1 at home now, and am a happily converted Linux user. No more Win2Crap for me.
However, I am quite unable to get my computer to download any RPM's over approx. 3MB's in size without getting warnings of "md5 mismatch". I'm downloading from respectable sources, and have downloaded them at all different times of the day. Something must be wrong with my memory, swap space, or more likely, my processor. Unfortunately I have not found a good way to test my hardware, as all of the manufacturer's tests seem to pass just fine, and yet I still have problems. Maybe I cracked my AMD chip installing my heatsink... i dunno.
I've used Windows for over 10 years throughout it's various incarnations, but recently wiped it clean from all my computers at home (except my wife's laptop which I'm not allowed to touch) because free software IS better.
If a program, library, or other software code fails in general on Linux or *BSD: fix the broken software and get back to computing again. If Microsoft Windows gets screwed up (or you haven't reinstalled it in over a year), better back up all your data from all kinds of different folders on the HDD and settle in for an all-nighter reinstall of the core OS and the many many many security updates to get it back up and *barely useable* again!
I imagine this system would simply involve designing less wasteful logic gates than currently exist, in which AND, OR, and XOR gates send excess voltage inputs back through the circuit, allowing the power supply to use the energy again rather than throw it off as heat.
;)
Remember, in the most simple OR gate, if you have two input voltages of +5V each, the output will only be +5V, leaving that additional +5V to be thrown off as heat. Sounds like this story is talking about some kind of logic gate that "recirculates" those 'extra' +5V signals back to the power supply system.
But don't take my word for it... I've only had some of the more basic circuit analysis and design courses to date.
Being a pilot is like being a professional athlete (for life). I was once pilot-qualified according to the U.S. Air Force's standards. Now however, I wouldn't be qualified at all. Sure I would probably be allowed to work as a glorified bus driver for Delta, if I was trained as a pilot, but two ACL knee reconstructions and now 35/20 eyesight wouldn't get me into any Air Force flight program. Also, it takes approximately 10 years or more (or so I've heard) to work your way up to being Captain of a multi-engine jet aircraft for any of the moderately sized airlines (even UPS and FedEx). Most graduates of commercial airline college programs have to spend years as under-paid flight instructors before they get to see the big money of being an airline's pilot.
Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.
Yes, my car is so inefficient because it can get me from point A, to point B (1000 miles away) in under 16 hours (provided I obey the speed limits). Any human would burn plenty of calories, poop a LOT, pee EVEN MORE, and eat a bunch of food to cover that distance on foot over the course of a FEW MONTHS! Let's face it, energy can be neither created nor destroyed. All this crap about "killing the environment" is really pretty lame, despite the concern that we're 'not doing good enough.' Sure, let's all go back to "prehistoric days" when we all lived to the ripe old age of 30 and had no means of communicating with those outside of our own tribe. Besides, think of all the COMPLETELY inefficient uses of raw materials back then!
So ultimately, the problem is that proprietary source code is best when built and sold as a finished product, and any updates or modifications are made by the original company. This concept only reinforces the idea of the Open Source benefits of code reuse. Which also happen to be the core benefits of software development in general.
That's because the mapping software can only distinguish down to the street level the approximate location of your house, I think. I do know that our software at work relies on 'Code 1' information when we mail out the stuff that we mail out, and without the full 11-digit zip code (that's right, 11 digits - the extra two digits at the very end indicate the exact location of the house, office, etc.) we have a harder time getting the stuff we mail to the correct place 100% of the time. And since we don't mail any kind of junk mail but rather sensitive info, it is VERY important that our mail goes to exactly the right place. I would think that might be quite a database hit to get it exact 100% of the time. More often than not, being on the right street is enough for a free service, if you think about it.
The point is, if God is an infinite being, why must he obey and/or bow to our attempts to prove or disprove His existence?
I mean every deity worth their salt could atleast make every experimental result ambiguous, randomly give the experimenters a bad head cold that only goes away when they stop the experiment, lose the paperwork etc. etc.
Either you intended that comment as a sarcastic slam on 'deities' everywhere, or you're just being retarded. Read 1 Kings 18 in the Bible for a great example of how this whole "testing" of God has been tried before and failed (at least that's what the story says). Remember while you read it that the God of the Bible is always described as an infinite god, and therefore trumps all other gods in the Bible. Having said that, the story of 1 Kings 18, whether you believe in God or not, is a great example of why applying our mortal knowledge to something that is greater than ourselves is an effort in futility.
Anyways, believe what you will, I just don't see the point in trying to apply the scientific method to "miracles" because by their definition they are considered beyond comprehension and scientific knowledge. Let's spend our money on actually improving upon known science, and less time wasted on this psuedo-science junk.
I don't get it. Why try and apply the scientific method to faith? That's just silly. God isn't Santa Claus; HE IS GOD! Duh! I'm sure God is a bit wiser than us (if you have faith that he is omniscient, omnipresent, etc. - basically infinitely perfect in all things). Why a scientist would try to apply a 4 dimensional measuring system to an infinite being (God) is beyond my comprehension.
C'mon, logically, either you believe in God or you don't. You can't measure that. You can infer by a person's actions with a high amount of accuracy that they do or don't believe in God, and that miracles are or are not possible, but you can't ultimately prove it one way or another. Let me guess, this was a US GOVERNMENT funded study, wasn't it?
The web is chock full of wild acusations and conspiracy theory pubs... so much so that reading anything takes 3-4 hits to try to verify the information.
The information it seems they're talking about is free for public use anyway, and just having a single repository with no slant would be good enough.
Ok, I can see the validity of that argument. However, let's look at how the "real" journalists gather their information:
1) Pick up on some issue, story, etc.
2) Interview subject that originated the story (if possible, otherwise research the source's validity)
3) Research two or three (at most, usually, it seems) other independent sources or correlating issues that relate back to the main topic.
4) Write up the story.
5) Profit
Notice that in step 4 there's very little mathematical, statistical, or actual fact-based references that can be verified by the person reading the story. That's why that New York dude who got canned a few months ago got away with fabricating stories for so long - no one validates the journalist's work!
Now imagine a decentralized, automated system that maintains references, cross-references, and verifiable information about the government's activities. I think that's what this MIT thing is aiming to be, and I think it's a great idea. Sort of a forced "open-sourcing" of the government and the people that run it. Of course, then you're invading on the personal dealings of those who serve us, and is that ethical or not? Kind of a reverse Big Brother, which might be every bit as scary, but at least it's keeping Big Brother in check, right?
I completely agree with the above poster's advice. Add in:
OpenOffice 1.1
and
Winamp 2.x for audio/video usage in Windows, or
XMMS 1.8 for audio/video usage in Linux.
Granted, I don't have GB sized files, but I do maintain some of my own files on my work computer that I DO NOT want some random admin to have access to, especially if I were to be "let go" one day without warning or time to backup/wipe said files.
I use PGP - the 'freeware' version - because I'm only securing personal files, not work files. For work files I'm sure you'd need an enterprise license or some such thing, but I've found it to be really easy to use. I also haven't tested out how actually secure it is, but it's Good Enough for my purposes. Plus, if you needed to, you can assign different 'trusted' sources when you encrypt your files, allowing other engineers to access those special files without involving the IT dept's help.
...when I read this part:
... I'll give ya a little piece of advice: If you see an agent, you do what we do. Run."
Eventually, buildings could also be augmented with camera arrays inconspicuously embedded into wallpaper fabric to scan for intruders. In CMU's prototype, every sensing node uses small cameras and Atmel 8051 processors, running at 70 MHz and consuming up to 500 mW each, to analyze images for possible security breaches and then stream the video to a central display. Redundant devices keep the system running in case of local battery depletion or other types of failures.
But then quickly a quote from everyone's favorite movie sprung to mind:
"There's way too much information to decode the Matrix. All I see anymore is blonde... brunette... redhead.
And once again I realized that no matter how bad it gets, ultimately it's all the same as before, and no one can actually control or design any kind of dystopian future as described in the book 1984. All ya gotta do is reconcile whether you want to embrace the new technologies and make the best of what we've got, or if you want to relegate yourself to living "the old way" like an Amish person.
My father-in-law has said that the advances in AI in the medical field are the new up-and-coming thing. Being able to type in five different symptoms that a patient has and then getting a return of possible diseases or ailments the person might have often yields VERY important data to the doctor to help him/her make the right decisions on how best to treat the patient. Sometimes the results the AI returns can be somewhat unexpected and the doctor would have no idea the patient might be suffering from the early stages of say... a cancerous tumor.
I find it funny that often-times I will hear something on the local news broadcast that has been covered in one online format or another WEEKS ago.
And if anyone is interested in a page that compiles a bunch of news sources into one big, ad-free site, check out this page that I found a while ago.
While we're having out the HP vs. TI flame war, let me add my kindling...
I have been a user of the TI-series of graphing calculators since they first came out with the TI-85/TI-82 line when I was in high school. My Physics teacher even did work for TI over the summers testing out their "new-fangled" (back then) IR sensors, radar sensors, and the 'CBL' which was basically a hand-held data collection microcontroller that could feed data directly into the TI calc's. Since then, (and since doing regular physics expirements with those instruments BECAUSE he had TI's backing for testing the instruments) I have always preferred TI. But that's not to say I wouldn't change given a better tool.
I currently have a TI-89, and use it for exactly what you described: checking my "equation set-up" before actually calculating. Seriously, who wants to enter thirteen different phasors in some big long equation and hit simply to find out that they flipped a '+' to '-' accidentally? I'm in school for engineering right now, and working full-time as a business analyst doing statistical analysis all day. Do you think I have time to do all the many calculations I do by hand all the time? NO! I also don't care much to worry about how the answer is found, just that it's right, and with the new TI's and their ability to display the entire equation after you've entered it in what I call "human readable format", I can be assured that I entered the equation correctly.
So for those of you '31337' pencil pushers out there, just realize that some of us are trying to get some REAL WORK done during the day and don't have the time to do it the old-fashioned way. I learned the basics, why waste time using the "old way" to do the math when I've got a better tool for it now?
Also, claiming the HP-48 or whatever is superior because it was the "best" back in it's heyday, is like claiming that "640k is enough RAM for ANYBODY!" Get with the times and use the best tool out there. Quit arguing about the brand name.
"As sprawling as these books are, there is no discussion of methodology, seemingly a critical lacuna in the founding of a new science."
In any scientific endeavor, methodology is CRITICAL. It's awfully hard to believe the measures and subsequent analysis if there is no basis for what is trying to be proved or disproved. Not only that, if the guy indeed is as focused on the stock market trends as this reviewer seems to think, then perhaps the guy who wrote the book is a bit more interested in proving something he's found to be interesting, rather than investigating the actual truthfulness or fallacy of the claims he makes.
I don't think I'll be reading a 2 volume set of books on "socionomics" if all it contains is posturing over the author's belief system without solid, objective reasoning for his beliefs.
Now there's a great idea! Seriously. When I first started out at college, I budgeted around $30/mth for myself in phone bills. That's right, $30/mth because I am from Ohio, and was attending school in Florida. The long distance charges calling a few friends cross-country and my family cross-country can add up QUICK! Especially for a freshman that's in a whole new environment. (Trust me, living amongst so many retiree's is like living amongst a bunch of retarded space-aliens, not that all old people act like retards, but a lot do tend to be rather crusty)
Seriously, for a freshman to not have to pay the phone bill each month, it's DEFINITELY worth it to stay on campus! That's about 6 extra Papa-John's pizza's per month!
Why is it that stupid people read horoscopes anyways? What is the formula at work here that makes people think that 'thier sign' is a unique horoscope that's RIGHT for them? If you read all the other horoscopes in the paper, or this website, they ALL apply to you too! I wonder what facet of our intelligence it is that tells us the horoscope is "right." If I pretended my birthday was 6 months later than it is, reading the horoscope for that day makes just as much gobblety-gook sense as my "real" horoscope. Anyone have some links to actual scientific studies on this subject of cognitive dissonance?